Since the movie Gone Girl came out last year, a lot of you have asked to see photos of Nick and Amy’s house in the suburbs and Desi’s vacation home on the lake. They were both filmed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, so let’s take a look!

In the movie, Nick and Amy rented this house with white shutters.

A reader sent me a tip about it, saying that it’s a real house and that it was on the market in 2014.

But before I show you what the real interiors look like, let’s check out the sets they designed for it on a separate soundstage.

Production Designer Donald Graham Burt gave the transplanted New Yorkers in the movie a nice but impersonal suburban house that looks like it could be a model home.

If you look at the rooms you’ll notice very few personal details that would give us clues about the couple that lives here.

When Nick comes home to find his wife missing, the detectives who respond to his call remark that even the “crime scene” looks a little too perfect.

A lot of you specifically asked to see more of the kitchen with its beamed ceilings and mix of white and wood cabinetry:

Man, was Rosamund Pike good in this movie or what? She had me totally freaked out. Ha.

I looked up the house on Google Maps and took a snapshot of the Streetview:

In the listing photos from 2014 you can see the house had new (and improved!) shutters, but fewer of them:

I like them better than the white ones in the movie.

Did you catch the other big difference? The house now has double doors instead of a single with side lights:

Here’s how the (real) interiors of the house looked when it was on the market:

Much sunnier, brighter, and happier looking than the movie version:

I don’t think a house this warm and homey looking would have served the purposes of the film’s story, though. Ha.

The town of North Carthage, Missouri, where the story takes place, doesn’t really exist. But the author Gillian Flynn says she had Cape Girardeau in mind when she was writing it, so that’s where they chose to film.

The house was built in 1993.

According to the listing, it has 5 beds, 6 baths, and approximately 4,413 square feet.

It sold for $575,000 in June of 2014 (you can see the listing with more photos and information here).

Desi’s Lake House:

The other house you guys asked about was the mansion by the lake that belonged to Amy’s ex Desi Collings (Neil Patrick Harris).

According to Production Designer Donald Graham Burt, the original lake house they planned to use was in L.A. When that fell through, the location manager found this one right outside town in Cape Girardeau.

He told Onscreen Style, “We were so fortunate to find it because it was this stylized Frank Lloyd Wright type of home. It was perfect because it had a grandeur to it and it was on a lake. It was just so unique in its shape and form.”

The living room is the only actual location filmed inside the real house. The others were sets.

They custom built all the furniture for each room in the movie.

The Production Designer told Onscreen Style that his favorite set was actually the little ranch house that Nick’s twin sister Margo owned in the movie. “It was mundane yet special,” he says. “The shape of it really worked for a lot of the scenes we had to block for.”

If you drove past this farmhouse in the Northwest corner of Connecticut, you might assume it’s been there for generations. Although it’s new, its design was inspired by historic houses in the area with bold color and Shaker style.

A reader named Alison told me that the homeowners hired Rafe Churchill to help them design it: “What I love is that it looks like a traditional house, but it incorporates many modern elements, as well as several sustainable features.”

Their goal was to build a house with “green” technology that was respectful of the historic architecture in the area. It has the layout of a classic New England farmhouse with a center hall surrounded by the public rooms.

“They wanted a clean, simple, spare and utilitarian look inspired by trips to Hancock Shaker Village. The use of strong color was also inspired by these visits.”

You wouldn’t even need coffee to fully wake up in a yellow kitchen like this each morning! So cheery.

One of my favorite details in the house was this fireplace wall with the paneled woodwork and built-ins:

To make it as environmentally friendly as possible, the house has a metal roof with solar panels, as well as a geothermal system and drainage cisterns.

The screened porch has day beds covered in Sunbrella ticking fabric and doubles as an extra sleeping area in the summer.

For more photos and information, check American Farmhouse Style magazine’s Fall of 2014 issue and visit Rafe Churchill’s website to see more of his work. (Photos by John Gruen; styling by Heide Hendricks.) Thanks to Alison for telling me about their project!

To see it now, you’d never guess that this house was once an outdated 1970s ranch, would you? The homeowners transformed it into an almost fairytale-like Queen Anne Victorian mansion on their sprawling horse farm in Madison, Georgia.

The listing says, “House completely remodeled in 2003 with over 4000 sq. ft. and featured in many magazines including Veranda. 2 bedroom suites on main floor, 2 more suites on 2nd and 3rd floors overlooking property.”

I especially love the generous porches around the house, and it doesn’t hurt that they have expansive views of beautiful gardens, horse trails, and ponds.

An article in Traditional Home magazine about the property explained, “Camp Boxwoods’ Queen Anne Victorian style begins at the circular front porch—the first project pursued by the owners when the rest of the house remained bland, single-story 1979 ranch-style architecture. The porch throws curves to augment the original straight lines and packs in gingerbread trim to reinvent the house as Victorian.”

The living room was originally the garage when this was a 1970s ranch-style house. They vaulted the ceilings and turned it into an elegant space with beamed ceilings, built-in bookshelves, and a fireplace:

Here’s how the living room looked when Traditional Home featured the house a couple of years ago:

Did you see the little built-in doggy bed they created under the windowseat in the living room? Adorable! Here’s a close-up:

The dining room was originally the living room:

The antique dining chairs are from a Victorian farmhouse in Missouri.

Here’s how it looked in Traditional Home:

More listing photos:

The tub was shown in an older listing when the house was on the market in 2012:

A photo from Traditional Home shows how tall the ceilings in the room are, with planks of reclaimed wood:

Mudrooms don’t get much prettier than this one:

The screened porch:

This gorgeous (and massive!) mirror in the screened porch is an antique they found in Cincinnati:

Dan and Randy, the homeowners who had the vision to transform the house from a ranch into a Victorian, are the creative minds behind Atlanta’s popular Boxwoods Gardens & Gifts, and the grounds around their country house are immaculately designed with fountains, gates, and gardens.

A restored historic church on the property was repurposed as luxury horse stables:

The stables were featured in Veranda magazine, decorated for a Christmas gathering:

Want it? Camp Boxwoods is on the market for $2.995 million. For more photos and information, check: the listing held by agent Chris Hodges, the video tour (some of these photos are screenshots I took from it), Traditional Home (article by Candace Ord Manroe; photos by Colleen Duffley), and Veranda. Thanks to Lisa for telling me about it!

This house was designed by architect William Bates in the late 1800s, along with many other homes in Lawrence Park, Bronxville’s turn-of-the-century artists’ colony. Two artists live here today and it’s evident from the listing photos that they consider their home an extension of their art.

The listing is with Lisa Grady of Pall Spera Realty who writes, “Drive past ancient trees, a 4-bay garage, the caretakers cottage and a large barn with finished apartment and complete workshop. An imposing stone tower greets arrivals and sets the tone for a farmhouse design that is both whimsical and timeless.”

I can’t help but think how much Sheldon would love this one. The listing says, “Globally acclaimed and masterfully engineered, the fabulous 19.67 acre estate regarded as the finest railroad of its kind.” Cool train set-up aside, the main house itself is very nice, too:

You can take a video tour of the property and the trains that run on it here.

Curbed reports that after “a half century of neglect,” Perry and Peggy Hirsch restored the Queen Anne Hiram Higgins Mansion, which was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1988. If it looks familiar, that could be because it’s appeared in many movies, including the Addams Family in 1991.

That front door is something else. Wow. The house is on the market for the first time in three decades. Check the listing for photos and details.

This waterfront home on Bainbridge Island has a ton of potential…and a ton of wallpaper, too. This could be a real charmer for someone willing to put the work into updating it (read: willing to strip wallpaper from vaulted ceilings).

The listing says this “trophy penthouse” has “reclaimed hardwood floors from the Portuguese embassy in Paris, which were milled to designer specifications in France.”

“The open layout of this Penthouse can be customized by a stunning feature — two retractable glass garage doors on opposite sides of the apartment. One door separates the living room from the master bedroom suite, transforming the space from an open loft into a well-proportioned one-bedroom residence. The other door separates a corner living space and large sauna bathroom.”

Thanks to all the readers who submitted these! Do you have a favorite?

P.S. My weekly newsletter goes out today with a link to my Secret Blog for Subscribers Only, so watch your inbox for that (click here if you’re not on my list yet and want to be included!). The ONLY WAY you can get to it is through my newsletter.

I’m giving a tour of this lovely country house on my Secret Blog today — see you there!

This small two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in Austin, Texas, was pretty darn cute, but just too darn small for the family of four who lives there. They didn’t want to move, though, so they hired Clayton & Little Architects to raise the roof and add a second story. Here’s how it looks now:

Architect Paul Clayton worked with project manager Carolina Cantu to double its size by adding a 1,000-square-foot second floor: “The original 1938 one story, two-bedroom house grew to incorporate an enlarged master bedroom and bathroom on the first floor and a new 1,037-square-foot second story that includes two bedrooms, a playroom, a utility room and a bathroom.”

Let’s take a peek inside while we’re at it. Here’s a photo taken from the kitchen, looking through the dining room to the front door before the remodel:

It was nice enough before, but here’s how it looks now that they exposed the original shiplap behind the drywall and renovated the kitchen:

Gorgeous! Love the new front door, too, which suits the house so much better.

Everything’s so bright and cheerful. For more photos and information about the remodel: Clayton & Little, Houzz. (Photo credit: Casey Dunn.)

So many of you told me to check out the beautiful houses in the movie The One I Love that I sat down and watched it last weekend. Not only was it a good movie with great sets, but I instantly recognized the enchanted, rose-covered guest cottage, because it belongs to a famous couple in Ojai…

But let’s back up a bit. At the beginning of the movie, the young couple played by Elizabeth Moss and Mark Duplass are in a marriage counseling session with their therapist, played by Ted Danson.

He recommends that they rent a “kind of magical” house where many of his other clients have managed to renew their marriages.

When they pulled up to this house, I was like, hmmm. Reminds me of something…

They walk in and look around, and now I want to build bookshelves in my entry hall…

I’m going to try not to spoil the twists and turns of the movie for you by saying too much about the plot, but let’s just say I didn’t see any of it coming!

I had to pause the movie and stare at the (huge) kitchen window and Dutch door a while:

I really liked the main house they stayed at and was happy to gawk at it…

But it wasn’t until they explored the grounds and discovered the “enchanted guest cottage” on the other side of the pool that things started to really get interesting:

A quick check on IMDb.com revealed that the director of the movie is Mary’s son Charlie McDowell (his dad is the well-known actor Malcolm McDowell; Danson is his stepdad). So that explains their involvement (and their property’s!) in the film.

If you watch the movie, you’ll notice that when Mark Duplass talks to his mom on the phone, her voice sounds just like Mary’s.

I loved seeing this guest cottage when it was featured in Houzz two years ago, so I was excited to see more of it in the movie. Here’s how it looked then (photos by Shannon Malone):

If you compare the movie screenshots I took of the cottage to the professional photos, you can see they didn’t change much (if anything) in the rooms for filming.

They even use an easel for one scene…

…that appears to be the same one that was holding a framed photograph here:

It’s kind of an unusual movie. Actor Mark Duplass says a lot of the dialogue was improvised. They were given the basic direction for the scenes and went from there.

There’s a small loft area with a couple of beds upstairs:

A bedroom with wood-paneled walls that are painted white:

Moss and Duplass do an amazing job in this movie, especially considering so much of it was improvised and — besides the brief appearance by Danson — they’re the only ones in it.

I’m trying hard not to say anything that will give the plot away, but let’s just say it was easy to believe that this adorable little house had a bit of magic in it.

Danson and Steenburgen hired architect Chantal Dussouchaud to design the cottage for them behind the main house.

“Because everything we do begins with a written word, whether it is acting or writing music, we wanted a space that pays homage to writing,” Steenburgen told Houzz. “Movies are rehearsed here, songs are written — we wanted it to be a place that breeds creativity.”

For more photos and information about the property, you can check out my original post about the cottage here:

Have you seen this movie yet? It’s streaming on Netflix right now. I flipped for both of these houses and had to keep pausing the movie to get a closer look at them!

I love hearing about houses that have some interesting history behind them, so I was excited to see this classic 1927 American Foursquare for sale in Richmond, Virginia, where famous siblings Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty once lived. Here’s a photo of how they looked then (so cute!):

Even without the movie-star connection, this is a great house. It’s nice to see how well-cared for it’s been by subsequent owners.

The listing says, “Lovingly restored and renovated childhood home of Shirley MacLaine and younger brother Warren Beatty. This classic Foursquare in the heart of Richmond’s historic neighborhood of Bellevue boasts a full front porch complete with porch swing.”

“The expansive foyer opens to the warm and comfortable living room with beautiful gas fireplace.”

According to Antique Home Style, “Versions of the Foursquare appeared in publications and plan books before 1900…[and] it wasn’t long before savvy builders simplified the shape and detail making it affordable to the middle-class. From its very beginning, it was perceived as an American type and style.”

“Initially, the most common plan was a formal entry with the stairs to the second floor, and a living room, dining room, and kitchen on the main floor. On the second floor, most plans had a bathroom in one quarter and three bedrooms, though four bedroom variants were common.”

The house has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths.

MacLaine has said that she grew up eating saltine crackers with Tabasco sauce for dinner. I have a feeling this kitchen looked a lot more humble back then.

The house has 1,750 square feet and was on the market for $339,000. I just learned that it got multiple offers over asking price on the first day of showings and sold before I could even get this post published.

Many thanks to listing agent Paul Collins for telling me about the house. Visit his site for more photos and information.

BTW, the house where Shirley MacLaine filmed Steel Magnoliasis now a Bed & Breakfast in Louisiana. You can see what it looks like today here:

While I was working on this post I started looking up other Foursquares and came across this beautiful (and much bigger!) one. I really liked it, too, so I’m featuring its renovation over on my Secret Blog today. You won’t believe what it used to look like!

On cold winter days, I often daydream about moving somewhere with better weather year-round. So why not go big and imagine living on Maui in a house like this, which was built on one of the island’s first sugar plantations?

The listing says, “The original home was built in 1858 as the plantation manager’s residence for one of Maui’s first sugar plantations. The main residence is believed to have been built in 1924 along with a guest house, and then over the years was remodeled and expanded repeatedly.”

“In 1992, the Simon family purchased the property and completed a substantial renovation to the home enhancing this historical residence. From its regal beginnings and its first missionary owner, to its more recent incarnations, the walls of the house whisper Maui’s diverse and rich history.”

A reader named Mary told me about this property and explains that Haiku is a slightly rainy part of Maui, which is probably why the sunroom is enclosed — no annoying insects to bug you when you’re sitting out here!

Mark Twain visited Maui in 1866 for his travelogue series “Mark Twain in Hawaii: Roughing It in the Sandwich Islands.”

About his time there he wrote, “I went to Maui to stay a week and remained five. I never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place goodbye so regretfully.” (You can read about his connection to Hawaii here.)

There’s a guest cottage, a tennis court, and a pool on the property, too.

The listing says, “A tropical retreat that is second to none. Expansive Pacific ocean views and impeccable grounds offering a peaceful secluded haven all year round. Pure original Hawaiiana architecture throughout with attention to detail completes this magnificent estate. Being offered furnished.”

Sounds good to me! For more photos and information, check the listing with Nancy J. Callahan.

When Jeff and Michelle were building their home in California, he wanted neutral white rooms, while she was leaning toward gray and burgundy. But designer Alison Kandler encouraged them to try “happier hues” like purple, yellow, and turquoise. Michelle was pregnant with twins at the time and agreed that the rooms called for more “fun, kid-friendly colors.”

HGTV Magazine featured the project and says Kandler kept the furniture classic and the walls mostly white (Whisper by Dunn-Edwards) but added color in fabrics and tile. The white kitchen got a turquoise island that matches the front door.

I found a photo of the kitchen in the designer’s portfolio that was taken from a little farther back to show the transom window framing the entrance to the room, and it looks like the island hadn’t been painted yet (or was maybe a paler blue?):

Here’s a closeup of the range from her site, too:

It’s hard to tell in these photos but the backsplash is “purple-tinged Moroccan tile,” a nod to Michelle’s Moroccan roots.

It wasn’t in the magazine, but I found this pretty bedroom featured in the designer’s portfolio:

Here’s a closeup of that gorgeous tile that I found on Kandler’s site:

To give them a bit of a “cottage vibe,” some of the rooms have colorful painted floors, like the bedroom for twins Asher and Rosie…

…and the guest room:

You’d find me whistling while I worked in this yellow and white laundry room:

Thanks to Alison for telling me about the project! For more photos and information, check her design portfolio and HGTV Magazine (story by Kathleen Renda and Jennifer Berno; styling by Liz Strong; photos by Mark Lohman).

I enjoy seeing how she plays with color and pattern in the rooms she designs. You can see more of her “happy houses” here:

Jennifer Lopez is selling her house in Hidden Hills, so now we can compare the photos of how it looked before she bought it to the ones in the listing today (fun!). She bought it in 2010 and worked with designer Michelle Workman to redecorate it. Here’s how the front of the house looked before…

According to Zillow, she and (now ex) husband Marc Anthony paid $8.2 million for the house 5 years ago. Now she’s selling it and asking $17 m.

An aerial view of the sprawling, 17,000-square-foot property today shows that all the red brick has been painted white:

Here’s how the entry hall looked in the 2010 listing:

Veranda featured the work designer Michelle Workman did in the house back in 2011. They photographed the staircase for the magazine:

Here it is in the listing today:

Everything in the house was a lot darker and more traditional when she bought it, including the dining room:

When it appeared in the magazine, it looked a lot lighter, softer, and feminine:

The room appears to be a little more purple than pink to me in the listing photos:

I couldn’t find the “Before” photos, but this is the formal living room:

The “entertainment wing” is probably the darkest part of the house. In the old listing:

It still has the all the stained wood, but the walls have been painted and the furniture looks a little more modern:

There are 9 bedrooms in the house. This photo of the master bedroom in the 2010 listing shows how big it is, with an adjoining sitting room:

Here’s how the bedroom and sitting room look today:

I especially like this spot with all the windows and the fireplace:

The master bath before:

I think it’s interesting to see how they reworked the space and gave a freestanding tub its own nook lined with bookshelves:

Looks cozy:

The family room off the kitchen as it appeared in the 2010 listing:

In the current listing photos you can see that everything has been painted white, and there’s a built-in wet bar in the room:

I was most shocked by the original kitchen because it looks nothing like this now:

These photos of the remodeled kitchen in Veranda really wowed me when it was featured a few years ago:

In the listing photos we can see more of the room and how the spaces connect:

The house sits on a 3-acre double lot.

Designer Michelle Workman told me, “It was a great collaboration and I loved doing this job!”

You can see my original post about the house from 2011 here. For more photos and information: the listing, Variety article, and the Veranda feature (photo credit: Laura Resen).

My weekly newsletter goes out today with a link to my Secret Blog where I post fun extra stuff for subscribers only. Today I have an unusual house in Texas to show you. Lets just say they took a “decorating theme” and ran with it!

If you aren’t on my list and want to be included, click here to learn how. See you there!